


Old and New

by experimentaldrama



Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen, Random & Short, Shimura Siblings, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 02:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8472568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/experimentaldrama/pseuds/experimentaldrama
Summary: Once their father is out of town, Tae teaches Shinpachi about a world outside of Edo.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've always thought it must've been hard for these siblings to grow up in such a conflicted world, even outside of the bloody wars. Takes place during their childhood.

“Now, Shinpachi—get yourself cleaned up some, will you?”

“But…”

Tae looked down on him with a stern face. There was no time to be hesitant; opportunities such as this were so hard to come by. Their father was quickly summoned for some distant friend’s funeral; mostly attended for status. Tae had barely convinced him the journey was too far for them on such short notice. Much whining had been in play.

“Father will be home tomorrow,” she reminded him.

“I know.” Shinpachi looked down at his sandals. Tae smiled and handed him a wipe, which he began to clean his face and arms with. She had pushed him hard today with the sword, rushing through procedures and getting out quickly. It was uncharacteristic of her, and now Shinpachi understood why.

Tae began to occupy herself with getting the sleeves of her hand-me-down yukuta rolled up to the elbows.

She squatted and hastily pulled a piece of wood from the floorboard. It was exactly the move you’d see in a grainy action movie, trying to tiptoe over adults’ heads to catch a glimpse.

What they did not show, however, was the dirt and dust that got onto your cleverly hidden item. Tae dusted the gravel from the bag with a bit of remorse for her genius thinking.

Shinpachi watched in awe. “Right, then—“She hefted the bag over her tiny shoulders with a grunt—“Let’s get to sneaking out then, shall we?”

The world had never seen a more dynamic duo. Although several times Tae had to turn back and grab onto Shinpachi’s collar so he didn’t collapse into the dirt, they made decent progress. Tae afforded that with those picture movies gaining so much popularity, she could become an actress. An actress by day.

She planted her hands down and hurtled over a trash can, basking in the laughing applause from her little brother.

The streets were intimidating at night, Tae thought. There were rocks and gravel smashed in every corner, construction gaining speed so fast that their poor residencies barely kept up. On top of that, no one roamed late at night anymore. She supposed that should have been comforting; but the lack of wandering ronin made her uncomfortable.

“…Ane-ue,” Shinpachi whispered from behind her, after a long period of silence. “Where are we going…?” He had noticed that there were more stars than usual out here. He liked that.

The words brought her back to reality—they weren’t in Kabuki anymore, more of a grassy area in between towns-- cities. She smiled at him. The rougher and darker areas outside of the cities were perfect.

“This is a great spot,” she said giddily. She could nearly giggle. These actions were an immediate warning sign to Shinpachi.

“Will you just tell me what we’re doing!” Shinpachi was beginning to get frustrated, and frustration always led to tears. They welled up in his eyes, unwanted.

Tae glanced at him in surprise. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” She put a hand on his shoulder comfortingly, before returning to her task. He sniffed.

She slipped the bag off of her shoulders, and lowered it carefully onto the ground, with a delicateness usually only shown handling their father’s china. Shinpachi hovered over the bag with a look of dread.

“Is it a dead body? This whole time I’ve thought it was a dead body. Is it one of those?”

“Don’t be silly. Have you ever even _seen_ a dead body?”

“Well, no…”

She continued on, unzipping the bag with concentration. Inside were several bits of shiny metal.

“I don’t underst—“

“You’ll have to help me with this. I’ve only ever done it with Kyuu-chan, soo…”

Tae handed him a grey sheet printed with instructions. He unfolded the paper, which continued expanding and expanding until it stood as tall as him. Which, admittedly, wasn’t very tall.

He glanced over the sheet, with the insurmountable wall of text hurting his head. “Ooh!” he exclaimed, his eyes alighting over a singular picture.

“Well? Read it.”

“Umm…” The smaller Shimura sibling could understand that what Tae had gotten her hands on looked _cool_ , but not the words involved. “Can’t.”

Tae’s mouth twitched, and the wind that came and nearly knocked the paper out of Shinpachi’s hand seemed like the manifestation of her anger. Good for nothing, Shinpachi imagined she was thinking.

Of course, she could not read whilst assembling, and if Shinpachi could do neither… He shook his head, feeling the sweaty strands of hair break from his forehead. But no matter how much he squinted, there were too many words he didn’t understand at all.

“Okay. We don’t need instructions anyhow. Come here.”

So they began to assemble the technology by memory, not before Tae began with an _if you break Kyuu-chan’s teley-scope I will never ever forgive you_. Tae did most of the assembling, while Shinpachi handed her the pieces.

“Is…is that what it looks like?”

“No.”

“Well…” He seemed nervous. “That part looks like it would—fit—here-- better than there.”

It clicked into place flawlessly. “Oh, nice, Shinpachi!”

He smiled tentatively.

A while passed, with the stars overhead passing by, but the sky lightening none. Finally the whole thing fit together like a puzzle. Tae thought that she should’ve seen where the pieces went beforehand, because it made sense. Shinpachi saw that it was a long tube angled up towards the sky. It looked cold and unfamiliar. But…

“It’s…pretty,” Shinpachi marveled.

“Kyuu-chan instructed me really well,” she said. “I should know how this goes by now.”

Shinpachi hummed the tune from a shop jingle down the street. He strained, but couldn’t recall the words. The song went _dooo-da-da-dun_ , though.

“Why are you humming that?” Tae asked, tongue stuck out of mouth in her focus.

“Uh…I don’t know,” Shinpachi said, frowning. Tae sighed. She didn’t know if her brother was young or just plain simple-minded.

She decided to explain. “You know… Father would be really mad if he knew we were doing this. So would Kyuu-chan’s father. It’s against samurai tradition, you know? So we’re kinda like “rebels” for doing it.”

“R-rebels?” Shinpachi didn’t understand the word, but the tone in which his sister had said it scared him.

“Yup. Rebels. People who don’t listen.” Tae was fiddling with the scope, trying to remember the way it twisted to make it work.

Shinpachi looked down at his shoes, maybe for the sixth time this evening. “But… You always listen to what Father says, ane-ue.”

Tae exploded, leaning towards Shinpachi and nearly knocking down their project. “Not always!” Then seeing Shinpachi’s afraid expression, she closed her mouth and backed away. “I mean… Little brother, I respect—love—our Father. So much. But he can’t always be right… Look around.”

She did not elaborate, and Shinpachi was too lost to ask her to. What did she mean? he thought. Their father was too good to be wrong.

Shinpachi sniffed. This was not how he imagined it to be.

“…Ah—ah!” Tae closed one eye and pressed her face to the glass. “I did it, Shinpachi!” She scrunched her face up, spinning her tool like she was scanning the sky.

As confused as he was, Shinpachi was eager to see what they had struggled with for the past hour. He jumped towards the long metal thing, wanting to see what she was so enamored with.

“I’ve found Junpiter!” Tae exclaimed.

“Junpiter!” Shinpachi cried. “Wh...What’s that?”

“A planet…It’s like an Edo a really long way away…”

“There are more than one Edos?”

“Yeah… Kyuu-chan taught me all about them. This is the start of a new era, Kyuu-chan told me. At least that’s what she overheard from adults. Now we know that we’re not alone here. There’s many planets. As many as the stars, maybe.”

“What?!”

“Here.” Tae extended her hand, and Shinpachi took it, letter her guide him to the telescope. It seemed like it had gotten even darker than before, but Tae was so strong that she could probably see in the night too.

He modeled after her and stuck his face to it, feeling it wobble underneath one of his hands lightly placed onto it. Now his eyes could see something that wasn’t normally there.

“Ah! Is this one of those…? One of my classmates used it to see an ant…Um…”

“A magnifying glass?” Tae suggested.

Shinpachi hummed in assent. “No, it’s a teley-scope. It’s like a magnifying glass, but it ‘collects light’. Whatever that means.”

Whatever it was, it was absolutely mesmerizing. A little ball in the sky like the sun but with more detail.

“And if you turn it a little to the left…” She tilted the machine. “You see another one, right?” Shinpachi nodded as best he could with the metal pressed to his face. “That’s Planet Hamek!”

Shinpachi oohed.

The two kept taking turns, pointing out new wonders in the sky. The view was a little blurry and unfocused, but it was like a mirror to a dreamland, Shinpachi thought. Once his father had told him a similar story; but it had been one of lust and uncontrolled desires.

Tae, as promised, knew lots of names, but then, Shinpachi had no way to tell whether she made them up or not. It did not cross his mind. That mind was too busy taking in all the wonder of a world other than the little area of Edo in which they practiced, ate, and played. Some part of him told him to enjoy it like an extra dessert, because there was few.

Even though the planets were grey and sober, they excited Shinpachi to no end. A little tune played in his ears, one all his own. These things that the magnifying glass let him see were comforting and beautiful, even if he couldn’t understand them or remember any names thrown at him.

Finally it was time to pack up. Many students came early in the morning and would know if they weren’t there. “We don’t know how long it will take to take it apart,” Tae explained sensibly.

It took a while. The sky was just beginning to prepare for the sun to dawn when they finally zipped the bag, exhausted from trying to get it to fit, without mangling the bits.

The excitement would not let them rest, though. Footsteps crunched the grass to their left, and before they could turn their heads, a harsh, inhuman voice was yelling at them.

“This is private property!”

“Are we in trouble?” Shinpachi whimpered. Tae, predictably, was not listening. There was no time to explain to the owner their completely viable reason for having trespassed. She threw the bag over her shoulder—at the last minute remembering to handle it carefully—and grabbed Shinpachi’s wrist. They fled.

Shinpachi would be humming his own melody for months to come, looking up to the sky whenever it entered his head. Even as their father returned, and they hugged him and were thankful for his safe passage, and he ruffled their hair in return, in the back of his mind he was still curious.


End file.
